John Coble
Nov 5 · 2 min read

That explains some things. You are coming from the bond trader’s perspective and I am coming from the debtor’s attorney perspective. I absolutely hate debt. You trade debt. That could explain some of our differences.

Futures and trend following? Kind of like Michael Covel/Richard Dennis?

I am a Kenseyian. As for MMT, I just can’t get past the government debt is only too high when it causes inflation and the idea that everyone can be employed. First, I believe government deficit is only one variable in inflation and that inflation would lag behind government debt so that even once government deficits reduce, the inflation will continue to rise for a while. Second, I can’t see guaranteed employment. However, I can see guaranteed basic income at some point in the future and this UBI would fill the guaranteed employment function.

I will have to watch the Greenspan/Ryan video. I know this is complicated stuff, but it will be difficult for me to watch two followers of Ayn Rand in the same video!

Taxes are half of the income/wealth transfer. The other half is government spending. That is, this new money from taxes on the wealthy is transferred to all Americans through spending on infrastructure. This new wealth for all Americans is our new and better infrastructure. There is also the wealth that is transferred to the middle class and the poor through jobs building this infrastructure. Other direct transfers to the middle class and the poor would be Medicare-for-All, Free College, and universal free childcare. Direct transfers to the poor would include supplemental income, food stamps, and welfare. A good non-tax/spend wealth transfer would come from Bernie and AOC’s federal usury rate. We have needed this since 1978 when the United Supreme Court struck down state anti-usury laws in Bank of Minneapolis v. First of Omaha Service Corp., 439 U.S. 299 (1978). You can trace the explosion in consumer bankruptcies back to that particular case. As for FICA and Medicare withholdings, there should be no cap on the income for these taxes. This is a flat/regressive tax. Removing the cap would solve the funding problems.

Since you are in the bonds/futures/trends game, do you have any idea how to put together an algorithm that could be used for predicting the price of corporate options at a specific time in the future? The time factor is key here — as well as quantitating the effect of different world events on the markets. I tried for about 18 months after getting my data science certificate to figure this out. I am now thinking that maybe I just need to try a low-frequency algorithm based on predicting the behavior of the sophisticated high-frequency algorithms (not ultra high-frequency — nanosecond trading)smoothed over 6 weeks to three months. It makes me dizzy thinking about it.

John Coble

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I am just your average everyday lawyer/coder/accountant/data scientist/blogger with a left-wing tilt. https://ko-fi.com/johncoble